Jerzy Andrzejewski
Encyclopedia
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
, Congress Poland
Congress Poland
The Kingdom of Poland , informally known as Congress Poland , created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna, was a personal union of the Russian parcel of Poland with the Russian Empire...
– 19 April 1983, Warsaw) was a prolific Polish
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
author. His novels, Ashes and Diamonds
Ashes and Diamonds
Ashes and Diamonds is a 1948 novel by the Polish writer Jerzy Andrzejewski. It was adapted into a film by the same title in 1958 by the Polish film director Andrzej Wajda. English translation, entitled Ashes and Diamonds, appeared in 1962...
(about the immediate post-war situation in Poland), and Holy Week (dealing with the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was the Jewish resistance that arose within the Warsaw Ghetto in German occupied Poland during World War II, and which opposed Nazi Germany's effort to transport the remaining ghetto population to Treblinka extermination camp....
), have been made into film adaptations by the Oscar-winning Polish director Andrzej Wajda
Andrzej Wajda
Andrzej Wajda is a Polish film director. Recipient of an honorary Oscar, he is possibly the most prominent member of the unofficial "Polish Film School"...
. Holy Week and Ashes and Diamonds have both been translated into English.
Andrzejewski studied philology
Philology
Philology is the study of language in written historical sources; it is a combination of literary studies, history and linguistics.Classical philology is the philology of Greek and Classical Latin...
at the University of Warsaw
University of Warsaw
The University of Warsaw is the largest university in Poland and one of the most prestigious, ranked as best Polish university in 2010 and 2011...
in the Second Polish Republic
Second Polish Republic
The Second Polish Republic, Second Commonwealth of Poland or interwar Poland refers to Poland between the two world wars; a period in Polish history in which Poland was restored as an independent state. Officially known as the Republic of Poland or the Commonwealth of Poland , the Polish state was...
. In 1932 he debuted in ABC Magazine with his first short story entitled Wobec czyjegoś życia. In 1936 he published a full collection of short stories called Drogi nieuniknione, in Biblioteka "Prosto z mostu", and soon received broad recognition for his new novel Ład serca from 1938. Immediately after World War II, Andrzejewski published the volume Night (Noc, 1945) and his most famous novel so far, the Ashes and Diamonds
Ashes and Diamonds
Ashes and Diamonds is a 1948 novel by the Polish writer Jerzy Andrzejewski. It was adapted into a film by the same title in 1958 by the Polish film director Andrzej Wajda. English translation, entitled Ashes and Diamonds, appeared in 1962...
(Popiół i diament, 1948). Having joined the communist party in 1950, he left the party after the 1956 October Revolution
October Revolution
The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...
. In 1976 he was one of the founding members of the intellectual opposition group KOR (Workers' Defence Committee
Workers' Defence Committee
The Workers’ Defense Committee was a Polish civil society group that emerged under communist rule to give aid to prisoners & their families after the June 1976 protests & government crackdown...
). Later, Andrzejewski was a strong supporter of Poland's anti-Communist Solidarity movement. He is "Alpha" in Czesław Miłosz's renowned book The Captive Mind
The Captive Mind
The Captive Mind is a 1953 work of nonfiction by Polish writer, academic and Nobel laureate, Czesław Miłosz, translated into English by Jane Zielonko and originally published by Secker and Warburg. The book was written soon after the author received political asylum in Paris following his break...
.
Although he was frequently considered to be a front-runner for the Nobel Prize for Literature, it was never awarded to him. He reportedly suffered from alcoholism which during his later years may have hindered his literary output. Andrzejewski, who was gay
Gay
Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....
in spite of having a family, died of a heart attack in Warsaw in 1983. On September 23, 2006, he was posthumously awarded the Commander's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta by the Polish President Lech Kaczynski
Lech Kaczynski
Lech Aleksander Kaczyński was Polish lawyer and politician who served as the President of Poland from 2005 until 2010 and as Mayor of Warsaw from 2002 until 22 December 2005. Before he became a president, he was also a member of the party Prawo i Sprawiedliwość...
.
List of works
- Unavoidable Roads (Drogi nieuniknione, 1936), a collection of short stories
- Mode of the Heart (Ład serca, 1938), first novel, winner of the Polish Academy of Literature award
- Night (Noc, 1945) featuring Holy Week
- Ashes and DiamondsAshes and DiamondsAshes and Diamonds is a 1948 novel by the Polish writer Jerzy Andrzejewski. It was adapted into a film by the same title in 1958 by the Polish film director Andrzej Wajda. English translation, entitled Ashes and Diamonds, appeared in 1962...
(Popiół i diament, 1948), film version won Critics' Prize at 1959 Venice Film FestivalVenice Film FestivalThe Venice International Film Festival is the oldest international film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the... - The Inquisitors (Ciemności kryją ziemię, 1957, tr. 1960)
- An Effective War (Wojna skuteczna, czyli Opis bitew i potyczek z Zadufkami, 1953), stalinist feel-good story
- The Gates of ParadiseThe Gates of ParadiseThe Gates of Paradise is a novel by Polish writer Jerzy Andrzejewski published in 1960. The novel consists of 40,000 words written in two sentences, with nearly no punctuation, making it an exercise in constrained writing. The second sentence contains only four words "And they marched all night"...
(Bramy raju, 1960), novel notable for being written almost without punctuation, in two sentences - A Sitter for a Satyr (Idzie skacząc po górach, 1963) published in the United Kingdom as He Cometh Leaping upon the Mountain
(and others)
External links
- C Tighe. Jerzy Andrzejewski: life and times. Journal of European Studies, Vol. 25, 1995 (http://jes.sagepub.com/content/25/4/341.full.pdf+html)
- Jerzy Andrzejewski (1909-1983) University of Glasgow College of Arts. Slavonic studies.
- Pisarze polscy. Sylwetki: Jerzy Andrzejewski, at www.pisarzepolscy.cpo.pl.